A Thank You to the People of Ealing Central and Acton

The General Election of 2017 was nothing short of historic. I and the Labour Party will be taking the fight to the Tories soon!

Dear Constituent,

The past few weeks have truly been a rollercoaster of a ride. But now the dust has settled I would like to take the time to thank you for your kind words of congratulations. It has been an absolute honour serving this constituency since 2015 and now the people of Ealing Central and Acton have placed their trust in me for the second time in two years.

The choice in this election was stark: a local candidate running on a track record of achievement versus an opponent whose publicity only stated the need to support Theresa May, who herself came badly unstuck as she misjudged the mood of the nation in her quest to crush all opposition, and obtain a blank cheque for the hardest of hard Brexits and attack our invaluable public services.

She has now been told by the people of Ealing Central and Acton that she has no mandate whatsoever to pursue those aims. The majority of 274 I had in 2015 when we unseated the previous Conservative MP has been transformed to a majority of 13, 807 - a 50 fold increase. The politics of hope has truly beaten the politics of fear.

In these times of uncertainty I think it is only right that I now inform you and the rest of my constituents of my priorities in the forthcoming weeks.

As I have been doing since 2015 I will be continuing to oppose NHS cuts and closures locally, including the government’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan which seeks to diminish Ealing and Charing Cross Hospitals to the point that they cease to recognisably be hospitals at all. I will be opposing both a soft and hard Brexit. I ran my campaign locally on the basis that I would continue to represent the will of the people of Ealing and Acton who voted by 72% to remain in the EU and I will continue to honour that pledge.

I have also received a number of communications decrying the attempt to cobble together a “coalition of chaos” with the DUP given their regressive positioning on social policy. I will be monitoring any attempt by the Conservatives to water-down women’s reproductive rights and the freedoms that the LGBT communities enjoy as well as the ability of same-sex couples to marry. There is no way shape or form that I will allow the DUP to water down these invaluable rights of which we should all be proud.

I am proud of our local campaign which saw big guns such as Sadiq Khan, David Miliband, comedian Andy Parsons and even my constituent and sister Konnie Huq of Blue Peter come over to lend a hand. But our success would not have been possible without the army of volunteers and party members who gave up much of their time to campaign for a Labour victory. For that I am truly grateful.

For now it’s a case of ONWARDS – might have to go through it all again in the Autumn!